Maximum Overdrive
Sometimes when one is on the fringes of their creative abilities, so burned out while being in an environment that they are neither familiar nor comfortable with, the slightest edges of genius can come out and dance in front of the viewerās eyes in such an unorthodox way that one can only applaud the sheer magnitude of the train wreck that nonetheless retains its beauty in its own way. That is the best way to sum up what Stephen King accomplished in his one and only directorial effort that was released back in 1986. Trashed by the critics upon its release and even trashed by King himself who admitted to being on a neverending cocaine binge over the course of the filming in Wilmington, North Carolina, a closer look reveals that what King pulled off here was really a homage to the often revered but in actuality pretty badly done sci fi / horror āparanoia classicsā of the 1950s, films which acquired many fans (including Richard OāBrien who famously pastiched several references to them in his Sci Fi Double Feature opening song of Rocky Horror Picture Show) but were still such terribly acted and written pieces of shit with ludicrous special effects work as well that one struggles to find the actual value in them. But Kingās film decided to go all out high octane instead with not a hint of subtlety or restraint featuring writing and character development that is just sufficient enough to get us from one scene to the next (a surprise since one of Kingās specialties as a novelist is character development). Indeed, the opening minutes of carnage pack such a sledgehammer effect that the viewer becomes almost worn out early until luckily the story settles down into a more isolated setting. King reportedly originally made an even gorier, nastier directorās cut (which he supposedly has the only copy of) and when it was shown to fellow apocalyptic horror director George A. Romero, it was said to have made him sick to his stomach, but unfortunately The MPAA forced King to make cuts in order to achieve an R rating which was ironic because a no holds barred style of gore would probably be the main thing to raise the film up to the level of perfection. The premise as it is appears through an opening text is that the tail of a comet (reportedly induced by aliens as a way of wiping out humans so that they may repopulate the planet) is passing through the Earth and as a result, all electrical machinery is now coming to life and making us humans the targets and as stated, the movie opens with utter carnage (including a memorable Stephen King acting cameo) showing the effects of the machines coming to life on their own in Wilmington, NC (although obviously itās happening all over the world too) with several people (including children) shown being gruesomely killed in various ways. In some ways, itās a little off putting (especially with the kids) as we wait to get to the real plot of the film which King does when we finally arrive at The Dixie Boy Truck Stop, a place where most of the various inhabitants know each other inside and out just from years of frequenting this establishment. Thereās the short order cook on duty (Emilio Estevez) out on parole and hoping to find something better, the nasty redneck boss (Pat Hingle) who might appear to be particularly cruel to his employees but in reality is actually your typical small business owner not to mention he has a penchant for referring to both himself and calling others āBubbaā, the ditsy yet cute waitress (Ellen McElduff) who is always spouting the usual Southern female euphemisms, the truck driver (Frankie Faison) who has always been a regular steady customer, and the gas pumping crew themselves. Others soon to arrive include a Bible Salesman (Christopher Murney) and a hitchhiker (Laura Harrington) whom heās been trying to rape since she got in his car, a pair of newlyweds (John Short and Yeardley āLisa Simpsonā Smith) and a little boy (Holter Graham) who had escaped a massacre at his little league game brought on by the machines and is now making his own way to the truck stop since his dad works there pumping gas. It seems that Faisonās truck (driven for a toy company which features the face of The Green Goblin in front) has become the leader for an entire fleet of trucks which are now circling the truck stop and its survivors inside. Nonetheless, the Hingle character still carries on as if heās running a business and that the people inside (especially the employees) continue to be under his thumb and Estevez finds some short term love with Harringtonās hitchhiker particularly when they realize that (in the filmās best character twist) The Bible Salesman she rode in with is probably the biggest scumbag in the whole movie. But Hingleās Bubba is easily the biggest asshole, informing Estevez in a jolly manner that if heās not willing to work more hours than he gets paid for then the parole board will get a call from him very shortly. That, along with the utter contempt and lack of respect that Hingle openly shows towards other characters who have been killed during the standoff is all conveyed with such sneering, unrepentant joy that it definitely makes Hingleās the best performance in the entire movie, underlining the idea that even when the end of the world hits us and mankind becomes locked in a struggle for survival, the true bastards and sons of bitches will all remove their masks of respectability and show themselves to be what they are. The film doesnāt get much time for philosophical thought on the matter at hand, save for the notion that these machines are getting a chance to turn on their own creators in such a way that we never quite could, but itās not supposed to be all that deep and intellectual, preferring instead to show us the ways that various characters could be dumb enough to be lured right into the line of fire so that they could be squashed like a bug by one of the various trucks (and later on be in a position to be shot down when a military vehicle shows up sporting a working machine gun). In the midst of all this, if there is one thing that winds up being the āXā factor to this movie that puts it over the top to greatness (and fits the whole enterprise perfectly to a T), itās the music score by none other than AC/DC that consists of new songs, some of their classics and even some instrumental work that comes off quite effectively as we watch these people fight for their very survival even as we remember that most of this is supposed to be entertaining rather than frightening or awe inspiring, which is where the AC/DC comes in to remind us in their own way that this is meant to truly be wild rock n roll horror, a combination that so many other filmmakers in the genre with their straitlaced conventions seem to forget (and for which itās possible that King in his coked up state never even intended) although that being said, the one nearly unforgivable bit is in the use of Psycho shower type stinger music every time a truck roars to life looking to run down another unlucky character. But for all those (including King himself) who consider this a bad movie, it would be advisable to look back at most of the aforementioned sci fi cheese fests of the 50s which usually featured acting that was as stiff as a wooden board and worse, laughably tried to take on a serious tone so that it would have a message that was considered āimportantā so that we would āponderā it for days on end (did anybody really find a deeper meaning within the goo that was The Blob?) when the truth was that 50s audiences had very little if any stimulation from movies and were probably grateful for anything that they did get that was at least different from either comedies or dramas. But here we got something that both racheted up the adrenaline AND the ridiculousness levels to new extremes all while finding flashes of brilliance in the writing and acting that within the subtext asks the question, do we really DESERVE to be here on this planet or should our own technology just turn on us and wipe us all out in such an efficient manner befitting the way that certain elements of mankind had embraced genocide? Obviously the machines could have just pointed their nukes at us (ala Terminator) and gotten it over with a lot more quickly, but instead they chose to just sweep us under the rug and then pave it over which makes for a story that features the coming together of several people both good and bad to face an end of the world scenario which involves a lot of vehicle wrecks and explosions along with some great music to help us digest the whole thing betterā¦
9/10